Author: Alan Bean

Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses–We Have Private Prisons to Fill

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Immigrant female detainees inside their holding cell of the Willacy County Immigration Detention Center in Raymondville.

I have been researching Operation Streamline and the private prison industry for several years now.  This is by far the best researched, thorough, and devastating treatment of these issues I have found.  The Texas Observer deals with issues the mainstream media wouldn’t think of touching.  In 1999, a packet of information from Lili Ibara of Friends of Justice sparked a 16-page investigative piece on the Tulia drug sting.  Nate Blakeslee’s article did what the New York Times and the Washington Post can’t afford to do–it told the story from the perspective of the poor black folks who had been directly impacted by a bogus narcotics operation.  It told the truth as it can only be seen from the bottom looking up.  This piece is just as good.  

Ask people on the street about Operation Streamline and you get blank stares.  Admit it, dear reader, even you, as well informed as you are, have never heard of the program.  And since we’re being brutally honest, most of you won’t take the time to read this article either.  Of course you won’t.  But if you really want to know what’s driving America’s immigration system, invest half an hour in Forrest Wilder’s article on Streamline and private prisons.  It pretty much says it all.  AGB

Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses—We Have Private Prisons to Fill

The profits and losses of criminalizing immigrants.

by  Published on Wednesday, May 1, 2013, at 12:14 CST
Immigrant female detainees inside their holding cell of the Willacy County Immigration Detention Center in Raymondville.

Delcia Lopez/San Antonio Express-News/ZUMA Press
Immigrant female detainees inside their holding cell of the Willacy County Immigration Detention Center in Raymondville.

When Jose Rios walked into a Bank of America branch last year, he hoped to open an account for the car repair shop he owned. He didn’t expect to end up with a prison sentence.

Days after Rios provided the bank with a home address and Social Security number, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up at his house looking for him. (Rios said ICE agents later told him that Bank of America, which has acknowledged a policy of reporting undocumented immigrants to immigration officials, turned him in.) Rios wasn’t home. His wife, a pretty, sad-eyed woman of 38, answered the door.

“They said, ‘if we don’t find [Jose], we come back for you,’” she said, sitting outside her daughters’ elementary school on a gorgeous California day while her smiling 2-year-old brought us handfuls of dainty red geraniums. Her daughters, the agents warned, could end up in foster care. (more…)

Lehrer: The GOP is the Party of Prison Reform

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ICan we let some of them out? confess that I rarely feature articles in the Weekly Standard.  A few years ago, a lead article in the NeoCon magazine accused me of inventing the Jena 6 story out of whole cloth.  I was not amused.

But criminal justice reformers ignore the conservative movement at their own peril.  At heart, America remains a deeply conservative country.  Ergo, if you can’t get a few prominent conservatives to sign on to a reform agenda it’s going nowhere.  In fact, given the baleful impact of culture war polarization, associating the liberal brand with an idea, however noble, can be the kiss of death.  In this WS piece, libertarian Eli Lehrer argues that the Republicans have become the party of prison reform.  The vision is limited, he admits, but that’s what makes it work.  

I have long argued that true reform will require an eclectic mix of conservative and liberal ideas.  Still, any move away from mass incarceration is welcome, and there are plenty of good reasons on both sides of the ideological divide for making that move.  AGB

The Party of Prison Reform

Conservatives lead the way.

By Eli Lehrer

Michael Hough​—​a second-term Republican state legislator from Frederick County, Md.​—​is about as conservative as blue-state legislators come. He played a prominent role in opposing the state’s new gay marriage law, holds an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, and received a 100 percent score from the state’s business lobby. (more…)

Jason Collins walks in Jackie Robinson’s path

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Jason Collins

Apart from writing op-ed pieces for USAToday, David Person hosts an excellent talk show on WEUP Radio out of Huntsville AL each weekday.  David and I do a segment together every Thursday at 5:00 even when I’m on the road and in unlikely spots like prison parking lots or a roadside McDonalds.  He thinks Jason Collins will face the same kind of challenges that Robinson encountered back in the day.  We have accepted black athletes; in fact, in many popular sports the majority of competitors are black.  But are we ready for openly gay basketball and football players?

Jason Collins walks in Robinson’s path

David Person, USAToday

First openly gay active male athlete in a major sport can confront backlash like number 42.

At a moment when baseball Hall-of-Famer Jackie Robinson is being celebrated in the popular biopic 42, another professional athlete has taken a step that will break down social barriers.

Jason Collins, a free-agent center in the NBA, announced that he is gay in an essay that was published on the Sports Illustrated website on Monday.

As the first openly gay active male U.S. athlete in a major sport, Collins, 34, a 12-year veteran, is entering uncharted territory just as Robinson did 66 years ago. And though a lot has changed since the hostile Jim Crow-era in which Robinson entered the Major Leagues as the first African-American baseball player, the 21st century has not been very welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

Mixed reaction

Yes, NBA stars such as Kobe Bryant and Baron Davis tweeted their support to Collins. Yes,President Obama called him to express his admiration and support. And former president Bill Clinton tweeted he was proud to call Collins a friend.

But a few attaboys in cyberspace is not the locker room, where some teammates could be less accepting of Collins. Nor is it the arena, where some fans might shout their displeasure.

While the NBA, NHL and NFL have developed programs and partnerships to encourage tolerance of LGBT people, professional sports is still the last frontier for raw expressions of traditional masculinity.

The long-held aversion to gay athletes isn’t only in the locker room, as comments made Monday by ESPN basketball analyst Chris Broussard indicated.

“I’m a Christian,” Broussard said on his network. “I don’t agree with homosexuality. I think it’s a sin, as I think all sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is.”

Because the NBA is not a theocracy, Broussard’s opinion will remain just that. And it should be noted that not all Christians address this issue the way Broussard has or agree with his conclusions. But the broadcaster’s jeremiad points to the challenge awaiting Collins, who by the way, is also a Christian.

In the Sports Illustrated essay, Collins wrote about a visit he made to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. “I was inspired and humbled,” he said. “I celebrate being an African American and the hardships of the past that still resonate today. But I don’t let my race define me any more than I want my sexual orientation to. I don’t want to be labeled, and I can’t let someone else’s label define me.”

Historical examples

The history of this great nation can’t be written without acknowledging that majorities have always tried to define minorities. Sometimes through laws, and other times through social mores and even brutality, groups and individuals have been labeled and forced into second-class status because their race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation was deemed inferior.

Whether it’s caustic, profane insults or biblical denunciations, Collins would do well to use Robinson as his role model once he signs a new NBA contract and plays next season. Just like No. 42, if Collins has the guts not to dignify bigotry with an angry or equally offensive response, he will empower other LGBT athletes who yearn to come out — and their straight allies who want to support them.

David Person hosts the WEUPTalk radio program in Huntsville, Ala., and is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.

Grits begs Texas legislators to close unneeded prisons

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The state of Texas is poised to make some really bad choices and Scott Henson of Grits for Breakfast is sounding the alarm.

A plea to Texas budget conferees: Close two prison units, don’t buy empty cells we don’t need

 This is a plea to the ten conference committee members on the budget from both chambers of the Texas Legislature, who for the record are:
  • House: Pitts, Crownover, Otto, S. Turner, Zerwas
  • Senate: Williams, Duncan, Hinojosa, Nelson, Whitmire

Let’s talk for a moment about prisons. First the House and Senate have both agreed in the base budget to fund 5% employee raises for correctional workers. Please don’t start slashing at those wage hikes to pay for prison units you don’t need. Including the extra money to bail out Jones County, the House decision to buy a prison instead of closing two will cost Texans an extra $116.8 million in incarceration costs over the biennium for those line items compared to the Senate budget. Close the privately-run Dawson State Jail and Mineral Wells pre-parole units as suggested by Senate-side budget writers and tell the folks in Jones County they’re on their own, just like so many other counties that built speculative prisons and jails they now can’t fill. (more…)

How about a federal-only death penalty?

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Curtis Flowers at trial

Doug Berman is a law professor, sentencing expert and ardent blogger.  He could be described as a pragmatic progressive who wants to reform the criminal justice system but advocates policy proposals with a real chance of being implemented.  Berman notes that most people have moral problems with the death penalty but still want it available for “the worst of the worst”.  One solution is to restrict the ultimate penalty to the federal system and take it out of the hands of states courts altogether.

Unlike Berman, I am not a death penalty agnostic.  When I think of the death penalty I immediately envision Curtis Flowers, a demonstrably innocent man locked away in solitary confinement in Mississippi’s Parchman prison.  If the conviction in his record-setting sixth trial fails to hold (as is likely) and there is no way to retry Flowers at the state level without punting on the death penalty, District Attorney Doug Evans would have a dilemma on his hands.  The investigation of this case was so flawed, and the “evidence” presented to six juries has been so shamelessly manufactured that it would never withstand federal scrutiny.

Prosecutor Doug Evans’ intimate ties to the proudly racist Council of Conservative Citizens provides a partial explanation for his decision to build a case around the perjured testimony of a lying opportunist who is in federal prison for tax fraud using threats and the false promise of a $30,000 reward.  This case would disintegrate in minutes if it was handed to a competent federal prosecutor and the same could be said for dozens of other weak cases involving black defendants and racially biased prosecutors that have been tried before predominantly white juries in little towns like Winona, Mississippi.

Here’s Berman’s argument:

Does Boston bombing provide still more support for my federal-only death penalty perspective?

As long-time readers know, I like to describe myself a “death-penalty agnostic” concerning the theoretical and empirical arguments that traditionally surround the the criminal punishment of death.  But while I have long been uncertain about the “meta” arguments for and against capital punishment, as a matter of modern US policy and procedures I have a firm and distinctive view: given (1) persistent public/democratic support for death as a possible punishment for the “worst of the worst,” and given (2) persistent evidence that states struggle in lots of ways for lots of reasons with the fair and effective administration of capital punishment, I believe that (1+2=3) as a policy and practical matter we ought to consider and embrace an exclusively federal death penalty.

Regular readers have seen and surely remember various prior post in which I have talked through this idea a bit, and I have linked some of these posts below.  But, as the title of this post is meant to highlight, I think the soundness and wisdom of my distinctive view on the best modern way to administer capital punishment in the United States is now on full display in the wake of the Boston bombings.

Massachusetts, of course, does not have death as an available punishment.  And yet, I have already seen reports of many local and state officials (not to mention Massachusetts citizens) who now say they are open to (if not eager to) have the bombing suspect(s) prosecuted in federal court in part because federal law includes the possibility of the death penalty.  Moreover, there is every reason to view terror bombings like these, whether or not they have direct international connections and implications, as the kinds of crimes that ought to be investigated and prosecuted primarily by national authorities (assisted, of course, by state and local official and agents).

Stated in slightly different terms and with the events in Boston now making these ideas especially salient and timely, I believe that essentially by definition in our modern globally-wired and national-media-saturated American society (1) every potential “worst of the worst” murder is of national (and not just local) concern, and (2) every potential “worst of the worst” murder merits the potential involvement of federal investigators, and (3) federal authorities have constitutional and practical reasons for wanting or needing to be the primary “deciders” concerning the investigation and prosecution of every potential “worst of the worst” murder, and (4) state and local officials typically will welcome being able to “federalize” any potential “worst of the worst” murder, and thus (1+2+3+4=5) we should just make death a punishment only available at the federal level so that the feds know they can and should get involved if (and only when?) federal interests and/or the value of cooperative federalism are implicated by any potential “worst of the worst” murder.

“Internet Islam” and the Boston Bombing

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Tamerlan Tsernaev

Ivan Strenski believes that the form of Islam that inspired the bombings in Boston had little to do with the religion actually practiced by devout Muslims.  The concept of “internet Islam” makes sense to me.  Strenski suggests that internet Islam is to real Islam as internet porn is to a sexual relationship with a real person.  I would suggest that internet Islam is to real Islam as computer war-game violence is to the experience of actual war.  Strenski takes a while to get to his point, but this piece, originally posted in Religious Dispatches, is well worth your time.

Was Islam Responsible for the Boston Bombings, or Was “Internet Islam”?

By IVAN STRENSKI

There must be sane ground between the Islamophobia of the right and the tender tolerance of the left. There must be some sense in which indicting the world’s billion Muslims for the crimes of the Tsarnaev brothers not only is false, but also counterproductive, on the one side. And, on the other, there must be some sense in recognizing the avowed and admitted role of religion, and Islam, in particular, in the bombings. (more…)

Scalia is wrong about the Voting Rights Act

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This op-ed in the WP argues that Justice Antonin Scalia misunderstands the egalitarian nature of the Voting Rights Act.  The act doesn’t just protect the rights of African Americans; it protects everyone. 

Scalia’s limited understanding of the Voting Rights Act

By Gary May, Published: April 26

Gary May is a history professor at the University of Delaware and the author of “Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy.”

In the debate over the future of the Voting Rights Act , it sometimes becomes apparent that certain members of the Supreme Court are either oblivious to our nation’s recent history or willfully ignore it. Justice Antonin Scalia made this abundantly clear in his comments during the Feb. 27 oral argument in Shelby County v. Holder , statements that he repeated in a speech on April 15. (more…)

Boston is about us

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By Alan Bean

When I recovered from the initial shock and horror of the Boston Marathon bombing, I automatically switched into advocacy mode.  “Please, God,” I thought, “don’t let the perpetrators turn out to be foreigners or immigrants.”

I am not proud of this reaction, but when you care about issues like immigration reform, every news event is filtered through a partisan lens.  How will this affect my cause?  Is it a disaster?  An opportunity?  A bit of both?

The catastrophe in Boston isn’t primarily about immigration or terrorism or public safety; it’s about the hundreds of people who still can’t believe what this senseless act did to the people they love.  We naturally identify with these people because we too are vulnerable to the power of chaos.

But we cannot identify with the two young men who casually deposited death-filled backpacks that would change countless lives forever.  Why would anyone want to do such a thing?  How could they they do it?  Did they think they were furthering some noble cause when they detonated their simple-but-deadly contraptions; or did they derive a sick species of pleasure from the pain and sorrow of innocent people?   (more…)

The South, still ruled by ‘the handful’

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Fannie Lou Hamer

By Joe Atkins, Labor South

Fannie Lou Hamer, a folk philosopher of the civil rights movement in the Mississippi Delta, knew what she was up against in a state and region where an entrenched hard-right oligarchy ruled at the expense of the majority.

“With the people, for the people, by the people — I crack up when I hear it,” said the former field hand, a woman wise far beyond her sixth grade education. “I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, ’cause that’s what really happens.”
Hamer spoke those words decades ago, but they’re just as true today as hard-right political leaders in Mississippi and across the South once again circle the wagons to make sure they stay in power even if it means suffering across the land.
Witness the spectacle of Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant and the Republican bosses in the state legislature opposing an expansion of Medicaid that would help 300,000 needy Mississippians even though the federal government will largely fund it. They’re not going to threaten their party or their own political necks by giving Obamacare a chance succeed. (more…)

Brittney Griner, Confetti Angels and Baylor’s Soul

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This piece originally appeared in the Huffington Post

By Mark Osler

This week, Baylor basketball star Brittney Griner made her first public statements about her sexuality, and at least one headline read that this announcement is “no big deal.” In the sports world, that has been true. Griner’s impressive talent and character speak for themselves.

It is a big deal at Baylor. That’s because Baylor, citing its Christian identity, continues to bar gay men and lesbians from employment, and bars active homosexual relationships under its student code of conduct. In the past few years, debate over that policy has grown more heated. (more…)